Reading Time: 5 minutes It’s a fact that with life comes death, and almost all of us know of someone who died unexpectedly as a result of an accident or illness, leaving their families to pick up the pieces. Lacey Frizzell of Barrie, Ont., was still in university when her mom died. Her mother had been the bookkeeper for […] Read more
Before the big “D”
You can help your family escape many of the difficulties that your sudden death would cause
Keep the farm or sell?
Mom and Dad want to retire. What’s the smart move? Should you keep the land for the family, or sell and invest?
Reading Time: 4 minutes As farming parents prepare to retire, conflicting viewpoints can arise with their offspring over keeping the land or selling it. What’s the right way to go? Deciding whether to retain versus divesting the family farm may be the biggest decision that any farm family will ever have to undertake. There’s no right or wrong answer, […] Read more
Selling the corporate farm
Darren and Carmen Sterling made the hard decision. 2019 would be their last crop. Then they would retire. But that’s when the real work began
Reading Time: 10 minutes When we talk about Canada’s aging farm owners, we generally talk about how best to pass the agricultural torch to sons and daughters or, more recently, about creative contortions to move the farm into the future with those who are not family — in short, succession planning. But is it still called succession when there […] Read more
Argentine soybeans facing tax increases
Reading Time: 2 minutes MarketsFarm — Not many major divergences can be seen between the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s data (USDA) on Argentina’s soybean crop and data from the department’s attaché in Buenos Aires. What may bring changes to the country’s soybean industry are tax increases imposed by the new federal government, according to Benjamin Boroughs, the USDA attaché. […] Read more
Livestock producers receive tax relief for 2019
Reading Time: < 1 minute Drought in Western Canada and Quebec has prompted the federal government to release an initial list of regions eligible for livestock tax deferrals. The livestock tax deferral provision allows livestock producers in prescribed drought, flood or excess moisture regions to defer a portion of their 2019 sale proceeds of breeding livestock until 2020 to help […] Read more
Lease or buy?
Accountant dispels the tax advantage myth of leasing
Reading Time: 5 minutes It’s been offered as accepted fact in more than a few coffee shop conversations that leasing equipment offers significant tax advantages to farmers. Talk to the sales staff at dealerships and you’ll likely hear them make the same claim. Even so, Lance Stockbrugger, a chartered accountant and cash crop producer from Saskatchewan, says the idea […] Read more
Tax change: Depreciable purchases written-off faster
For farmers and agribusinesses the new measures will provide a larger tax write-off sooner
Reading Time: 3 minutes This past fall the federal government introduced the Accelerated Investment Incentive, giving Canadian businesses the ability to write off capital expenditures faster. Encased in its 2018 Fall Economic Statement, this incentive allows farmers and other businesses more depreciation in the year an asset is purchased … a lot more. The idea is to spur business […] Read more
Small business corporations hit by new tax rules
Some major changes to how Canada Revenue Agency handles small business corporations are costing incorporated farms, especially those focused on expansion
Reading Time: 2 minutes Tax rules change. Some governments try to lower taxes, others claw back those tax wins. Currently, Ottawa seems to be gnawing away at what some see as the very foundation of this country’s economy, small business profits. Incorporated businesses may be losing some of the tax advantages they’ve had over sole proprietorships, but are still […] Read more
Seven ways incorporating your farm can improve your operation
Successful farms depend on having smart, strategic people, no matter what structure. However, being incorporated has forced farms to create accrual financial statements and operate under certain rules of engagement, which has jumpstarted more professional behaviour, such as having farm meetings.
Keystone Agricultural Producers defends cash ticket deferrals
Reading Time: < 1 minute Manitoba’s Keystone Agricultural Producers has joined other farm groups in calling on the federal government to keep a regulation that allows farmers to defer grain sales into the following year for tax purposes. The government announced in its recent budget that it is considering eliminating grain ticket deferrals because it is a left over from[...]
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A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
